Sunday, 28 September 2014

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the
same ideas make their appearance in the world.- Aristotle

Or (if you want to be all obvious about it)

Don’t do your good deeds when there’s no-one watching you.

- Tom Lehrer

Me:Well, that was the,
vastly time shifted, The Caretaker.We’ve just finished watching it and-

Him:Why was it
‘vastly time shifted’?

Me:Because it was on
later anyway, apparently because of Strictly Come Dancing, which doesn’t affect
you if you’re watching it on iPlayer, just means it doesn’t turn up until
twenty past nine rather than… when it usually did.It’s coming up for twenty to eleven now, so
that’s pretty late for both of us.1We’d
better rush through a couple of these things I’ve scribbled down.

(Pause.Shuffle shuffle.)

I think the theme’s been remixed again.I’m sure they keep changing it.

Him:I think you’re
mental.2

Me:Okay.Jane Austen.Must we?Must we really?Do we have to?

Him:Isn’t she your
favourite?

Me:No, she’s
not.She’s terrible, terrible, terrible,
terrible.3

Him:Interesting word
choice there.Normally there are much
stronger words used to describe the wonders of Jane Austen.

Me:I know.We’ll leave those for the time being.Her work’s truly wretched.In my opinion.Speaking of that…I’m going to get this out of the way.

(Pause.)

In the end he didn’t, but Murray Gold came very close to spoiling The Caretaker
for me.

Him:You need to stop
blaming Murray Gold because he’s not even there anymore.

Me:I don’t know what
that was.Some of it was effective-

Him:It’s not Murray
Gold’s fault.

Me:It was
really…Some of it was dreadful.

Him:He’s actually
getting worse this series, isn’t he?

Me:Yeah.

Him:And you loved
him in the first four.

Me:Well, yeah.Back before it became maths and Promsbait.Tonight was like…Like it had the musical themes from Gremlins running through
it.Which would be alright but…Not as audio description.Like a cartoon.I did find some of the scene-changes jumping
from one section of Cardiff
to another rather distracting.They
jumped miles between shots when the Doctor was on the trail.That’s a personal thing.4So, other than Jane Austen and a request to
please, please, please sort the music out – the subtle stuff was so much nicer
and more effective – I don’t think I’ve got anything negative to say about The
Caretaker.

Him:I’m sure you
do.You’ll think of something.

Me:I think it’s
the best thing Gareth Roberts has written for the series.

Him:Who’s he?

Me:He’s the writer
of The Caretaker.Along with Steven
Moffat.

Him:Yeah, but what
else has he done? You have to explain
these things further.Especially since
I’m a figment of your imagination-

Me:No!NO!

Him: -designed to further improve any statements you will or make.

Me:Ha!And I’ve got to type that up, have I?

Him:It’s you that’s
saying it.In a completely different
voice.

Me:Right, okay.

Him:I’m not real, I’m simply a figment
of your imagination designed to further emphasise your thoughts and feelings.

Me:But how do I know that?

Him:You don’t know that.Other people have realised this.

Me:So this is all just one chap ranting
to himself?

Him:Yup.

Me:Cool.

Him:That’s exactly what you’re
doing.And what I’m doing.

Me: Gareth Roberts wrote The Shakespeare Code, which was
based on a comic strip he wrote for Doctor Who Magazine.Then he wrote The Unicorn and the Wasp, then co-wrote Planet of the Dead.Then…The Lodger, which was based on a comic strip he wrote for Doctor Who
Magazine.

Him:He wrote that
strip?

Me:Yeah.It was changed for the screen, because in the strip it was-

Him:You preferred it
when it was with Mickey.

Me:They still don’t
count.In The Lodger, the Doctor has to
pretend to be a human in order to-

Him:Save the world from
an alien that no-one else knows is there.

Me:That’s
right.And then, in Closing Time-

Him:The Doctor’s got
to pretend to be human in order to save the world from aliens that no-one else
knows are there.

Me:Yeah, that’s
right.And then in The Caretaker-

Him:The Doctor’s got
to pretend to be human in order to save the world from a robot.

Me:An alien
robot.Which no-one else knows is
there.6

Him:Well, in The Lodger it’s a warning protocol.And
then, in Closing Time, it’s alien cyborg people, who aren’t aliens but kind
of are.

Me:Yeah.

Him:And then in The
Caretaker, it’s an alien robot.So, none
of the times is it an alien.7

Me:I’m still getting notes
of pre-Genesis Terry Nation Dalek scripts here.Did you notice that in The Lodger, the alien menace is defeated by love?

Him:Hmmm?

Me:And in Closing
Time, the alien menace is… um…

Him:Defeated… by
love.

Me:And then, in The
Caretaker, the alien menace is…

Him:Defeated by a
somersault.

Me:Yeah!Wasn’t that good?And it had nothing to do with love at
all.Even though the word ‘love’ was
mentioned for the first time in a while and…Okay.In fact, love of different
types.Which is interesting because that
brings us back to the Greeks, but we won’t go into that at the moment.

Him:The Greeks!Why are we always talking about the Greeks?

Me:One thing I
wanted to mention quickly.“Shut him up or
shut him down, I don’t care which.”Remember when the Doctor said that to Clara about Danny?

Him:Yeah.

Me:Remember The Power of the Daleks?I think he said something
similar to Lesterson in that.“Up or
down, I don’t care.Just destroy them.” I think that’s the line.It’s just an excuse for me to put a link to
The Power of the Daleks, one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever.Okay, was it Adrian?The teacher who dressed a bit like Matt Smith?

Him:Goodness knows.

Me:It was only after
the scenes where that character got the Doctor’s approval, that I noticed how
much the caretaker’s jacket reminded me of the coat David Tennant wore.

Him:Ha!And what about the shirt that seemed to be
made from space?

Me:I love that
jumper.He was wearing it in
Listen.It’s lovely.Rev pointed out that that’s Peter
Capaldi’s own jumper.Okay…There wasn’t a reference to Barbara,
unfortunately.The odd otter agenda
continues.It’s been threaded through
Steven Moffat’s run.

Him:Well, for the
purpose of emphasising your point, I’m going to answer this in the form of a
question.

Me:Ha!

Him:What did you
think of it?

Me:It reminded me of
the M.A.R.K. 13 from a film by Richard Stanley called Hardware, also starring
Carl McCoy from Fields of the Nephilim.That gives me another chance to mention Fields of the Nephilim here
because Richard Stanley directed a couple of their early videos, Preacher Man
and Blue Water, as well as being involved with their last live DVD.The M.A.R.K. 13 itself was… 2000AD took umbrage due to a
similarity in storylines to, I think, a Future Shock – which ties in with Time Heist.Nah, I just wanted an excuse to
mention Richard Stanley and Fields of the Nephilim.

Him:You don’t think
it looked like a spider with the face of a catwolf?

Me:No, but I liked
the way it moved.

Him:Jumpily?

Me:Yeah.What did you think of Courtney?

Him:Well, for the
sake of further emphasis-

Me:No!

Him:What did you
think of Disruptive Influence?

Me:She’s so much
better than Angie.I like the way she’s been
gently built up in the background.And
the vomiting!She’s an interesting
character.And the parent’s evening
scene trod, just, the right side of comedy and they got away with it
largely-It’s not hurt by the fact that
Jenna Coleman and Samuel Anderson are so likeable and their performances are
really good.You know when Danny does
the somersault?

Him:Yeah.

Me:I was thinking,
“Is that the sort of thing that Harry Sullivan was supposed to be doing?”

Him:No.

Me:Well, they thought
they were going to be having an older Doctor, so Harry would’ve done all the
stunty stuff.

Him:Well, Tom Baker
didn’t do anything-

Me:Tom Baker was
much younger than they’d planned on casting.

Him:He also didn’t
do any somersaults, despite being much younger.

Me:Not after that
incident with the collarbone during The Sontaran Experiment.8

Him:Tell us this
story.

Me:Trust me, anyone
reading this already knows it. I thought there were some really good
shots in The Caretaker.Some great
cinematography.The bit where the Scovox
Blitzer’s starting to return and that chair comes sliding up to the
screen…I still think we’re building
towards a character’s doom, that’s definitely happening.There was foreshadowing aplenty
throughout.When Danny makes Clara
promise to tell him if the Doctor makes her do something-

Him:“If he ever
pushes you too hard.”

Me:Yeah, so what
we’re looking at is when that happens and Clara doesn’t tell Danny.It’s not just Clara that’s making mistakes –
I’ve said this before – the Doctor’s getting it wrong all the time.Courtney shouldn’t be in the TARDIS.

Him:That’s because
he’s given up trying to…

Me:It’s a very
dangerous thing the Doctor’s doing.He’s
not listening, he’s not paying attention and someone’s going to get hurt, or
lose an eye or something.I’ve started
delving into Socrates,9 the themes and forms of Greek tragedy and the
Aristotelian term ‘hamartia’, which I’m probably pronouncing wrong.I genuinely think this is what’s going on
here.Moffat’s created something
phenomenal and he’s getting a writing credit on these episodes because he’s
plotted a course.Did you enjoy The
Caretaker?

Him:Well, for the
sake-

Me:No,
seriously.Did you enjoy it?

Him:-of emphasising
any points that you will or make, I’m going to ask you if you enjoyed The
Caretaker.

Me:I did.I thought it was great.

Him:Bah!You haven’t hated any of them so far, have
you?

Me:No.Not even Robot of Sherwood.Almost everyone involved – it seems to me –
is bringing their best to it every week.Apart from Murray
Gold.

Him:Who was doing
better.

Me:Who was doing
a lot better, but who’s now falling back into old habits and started digging a
hole.I really feel like we’re heading
for another Simpson/Horns of Nimon interface type affair, and it’s time someone buys him
a lovely meal and then asks him to leave.

(Pause.)

Him:What’s that got
to do with The Horns of Nimon?

Me:Dudley Simpson
got given his marching orders after that one.11John Nathan-Turner took him for dinner and then that was that.Having said that, Dudley Simpson had been
contributing to the series since, what, ’64?Sixteen years.

Him:So, maybe we’ll
have Murray Gold for the next seven years.

Me:Well…Some of his music’s still good, but the
fire’s gone out.I’ll be honest, I can’t
not hear it now.

Him:Neither can I.

Me:I’m tuned in to
it.And it really bugs me when
it’s…Apart from Listen, which I don’t
remember as having had any music, the excess had been toned down for the first
four episodes.It’s as though someone’s
struck a bargain and Listen was a one-off granted solely on the condition it
was business as usual after that.Every
time the orchestra start parping out comedy schmaltz, I feel like Ebenezer
Blackadder opening the door to Doctor Fendelman and his Enormous Orphans on
Christmas Morning: “Oh, surely not another totally unexpected rendition of `God
Rest Ye Merry Mr Blackadder'...”It’s
just not necessary.Having said that,
some of the music in The Caretaker was good.I know that, because I didn’t notice it.It’s a shame the balance is wrong-Oh, and the Matt Smith music played over the next time trailer
again.

Him:I was too busy
noticing the fact that it was Alien.

Me:Ah.

Him:As were you.

Me:It looks
alright.I’m looking forward to it.Are there any you haven’t liked?

Him:Mog’s the one
that dies, then the family get a new cat, and the new cat sees the ghost of
Mog.Mog’s horrified that there’s a new
cat in the house instead, but then the ghost of Mog realises that the new cat
is what’s keeping the family happy and-

Me:Are you trying to
make me blub?

Him:No, that’s the
story.

Me:‘Death of Mog’.

Him:I forget what
the final book’s called.There’s ‘Mog
and the Foxes’,12 ‘Mog and the Egg’ and I think this one’s called ‘Mog Snuffs
It’.

Me:Ha!

Him:I don’t remember
how Mog dies.

Me:Old age, isn’t
it?

Him:No, I think Mog
gets very sick.

Me:Honestly?

Him:Yeah.Then, instead of telling the children that
Mog’s gone off to live with-

Him:So, they tell
the kids that Mog went to live with Mad Miss Glubberknwtcz, just down the
street, and then they get a little ginger cat.And the ghost of Mog realises that this tiny cat is keeping the family
happy where Mog can no longer do such a thing.Because she’s dead.

Me:Well, that’s
lovely.

Him:I think it’s
something to do with the fact that Mog was eating all the eggs.They used to give Mog eggs as a treat and I
think that’s what makes her ill.They
try and bring her an egg and she’s just lying there in the basket, too ill to
eat it.

Me:This is terribly
sad.

Him:And the next day
the kids come home and they’ve got this new little ginger kitten instead.

Me:That’s quite a
swift mourning period then.“Cat’s
looking a bit peaky, dear. Better pick up another one just in case.”

Him:Mog died while
they were at school, so they got another one.

Me:Right.Moving on.That ending there threw a lot of theories out of the water.

Him:Your ones in
particular.13

Me:I didn’t
think that Missy was only collecting people who’d sacrificed themselves
nobly.And the policeman didn’t.

Him:That’s… correct.

Me:I thought Chris
Addison was playing Seb a little oddly.

Him:It didn’t feel
like him.

Me:No.It was too…Like I was saying last week when I was
complaining about arch performances.We’ll see how it
goes, he might get away with it.Did you
like the parents’ evening scene?

Him:We haven’t
talked about chess.

Me:So, do you reckon
Courtney’s actually Fenric?That’s the
only reason they’d have a chessboard in there.10

Him:She might end
up being a Dalek, giving a reference to Death to the Daleks.

Me:Or whatever that
Sylvester McCoy one is that begins with ‘r’.It’s either 'Remembrance', 'Revelation' or 'Regurgitation'.

Him:The Sylvester
McCoy one’s ‘Remembrance’.

Me:That whole run of
naming everything as ‘Something Arbitrary Beginning With ‘R’ of the Daleks’
still throws me.‘Remembrance’ would
make more sense being the Colin Baker one.

Him:It’s not
though.

Me:No.

Him:She’s so doomed.

Me:She is.She’s so doomed.It’s gonna be messy.

Him:There was
something I wanted to say.You’ve got
the same brain as me, try and remember what it was.

Me:I think that’s
everything.

Him:Let’s make
remembering noises.

Me:Mmmm…

Him:Mmmm…Mrgh!

Me:Mrgh!

Him:Mrgh!

Me:Mrgh!

Him:MRGH!

Me:MRGH!

Him:MRGH!

Us:MRGH!

(None of this means anything.)15

1. That includes the
time it takes to download an SD version of a programme as well as the moments
spent rewinding to check if that really was The Pink Floyd as well as the missed
opportunity to reference Barbara. I
guess the Maggot of Patience is gone forever, crushed ‘neath the wheels of
technological progress like a sandcastle under a tank.

2. Don’t write in.

3. The Bret Easton Ellis of her day,
Austen’s one of the most over-rated authors in the history of literature. I could go into detail but that’s not why
you’re here. Sometimes, you only think
it’s satirical. Earlier in the year
there were rumours that Mark Gatiss was contributing a pseudo-historical to the
current run of Doctor Who in which Austen would appear. I’m not sure if Gareth Roberts and Steven
Moffat were delicately foreshadowing a season nine/series 35 script, but I
really hope not. But then, I’m not
expecting William Blake to turn up in the forthcoming one named after a line in
one of his poems either.

4. Isn’t it all though? What else can it be? Anyone can whip out a thesaurus and some
massive smoke-filled bellows and enthusiastically set to fundamentally
inflating the ego of an innocent they’ve plucked from the rapidly rising rapids
of social media.5 Personally, I’d rather
have an opinion.

5. This is a double bluff as I couldn’t
really, due to not owning a thesaurus.
Horrible things. Wouldn’t have
one in the house.

6. We’ll get back to the policeman,
don’t you worry.

7. Are we still working on the basis that The
Lodger’s full of the Silence then?

8. Not forgetting the nice stunt in The
Seeds of Doom. Shame you can’t tell it’s
him.

9. It’s been announced this week that
there’s going to be a third Bill and Ted.
Now, that’s synchronicity for you.10

Sunday, 21 September 2014

At
every action, no matter by whom performed, make it a practice to ask yourself,
'What is his object in doing this?’ But begin with yourself; put this
question to yourself first of all.- Marcus Albus Dumbledore Aurelius

Or (if you want to be all obvious about it)

I
received a call from Mimi Du Jour, she wanted me to come to the club right
away. Since I had no idea where the Club Rightaway was, I suggested we go to
the Club Flamingo. She agreed. Well, you take a big chance getting up in
the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan.- Sergeant Frank Drebin (Detective Lieutenant
Police Squad)

Me: Right.

(Pause.)

In Star Trek there are some… ‘rules’. One is that any character you’ve not seen before, if they’re wearing a red shirt when beamed down to a planet, isn’t going to make it through the mission. They’re just there to act as collateral damage so that a listed character can bellow “NOOOOOOO!” in slow motion’-1

Him: But you hate Star Trek.

Me: TV Star Trek and all the odd-numbered films are universally sensorite.2 That’s just the rule. They’re pants. The even-numbered Star Trek movies are all right. Now-

Him: Although, you hate all of them equally.

Me: No, no, no. The even-numbered films are okay. By and large. And some moments in the 'Doc' Abrams lensflare series are alright too. Now, with Doctor Who, there’s also a quality control ‘rule’. If it’s got ‘Time’ in the title, watch a different one.

Him: What about Time and the Rani?

Me: Exactly.

Him: You love that one.3

Me:Time Flight?

Him: You’re just listing ones that you love.

Me:Timelash?

Him: Well, Arc of Infinity doesn’t have ‘Time’ in the title, and you still hate that one.

Me: No, no, no, it’s just a rule: “If it’s got ‘Time’ in the title then-” Actually, Invasion of Time’s alright. Nice twist, just a bit too long. Having said that, End of Time Parts Un and Deux, of course. Time Crash doesn’t count.4 All of which brings us, shudderingly, to Time Heist.

Me: -that I’ve used as an introductory prologue to our ‘review’. Most of the 'Time'-titled stories in question are let down by their production, rather than their scripts, so-

Him: Ah ha. Ha.

Me:Time Heist then. I thought it was very good, with flaws. What did you think of it?

Him: Why don’t I answer that…

Me: Ha!

Him: …in the form of a question? What did you think of Time Heist?

Me: Well... Okay. I thought the production design was brilliant. I think Douglas Mackinnon’s a very, very good director and I liked some of the choices that he made. The colours that run through it are glorious, you can almost taste them. It’s beautiful. The way that it cuts from location to location’s very nice. I liked the way that one shot crashed into another, but there’s more to be said about that. The Teller looked magnificent. Peter Capaldi was, as usual, great. Jenna Coleman, likewise. Keeley Hawes… was much better in one role than the other.

(Pause.)

What did you think of the Teller?

Him: What did you-

Me: I’ve said. I thought it looked amazing.

Him: You didn’t think it looked too much like something from Star Trek?

Me: No, I didn’t. What did it remind you of? You said something while we were watching it…

Him: I just said it didn’t look particularly… Doctor Whoish.

Me: Why Star Trek?5

Him: Look at stuff from Star Trek and you'll see.

Me: I’m sure you mentioned minotaurs.

Him: No. That’s not how it looks, that’s how it acts.

Me: Oh, right. So you got a The God Complex/“Praise him” type of vibe? And when it's locked onto you…

Him: And being really slow and everything, yeah.

Me: God, that’s something I’m going to have to come back to.6

Him: “Don’t bother running. You’ve got ages.”

Me: “It’ll take forever.” Yeah. It walks in slow motion everywhere. I know that’s supposed to add the illusion of weight as well as quoting aspects of the generic visual language found in recent crime dramas, but it was… How long was this episode under-running? Why did they need to slow so many scenes down? Was there another missing scene dragged and dropped into a recycle bin somewhere in the BBC? What’s going on there? An awful lot of Time Heist didn’t remind me of Ocean’s 11 or Ocean’s Twelve. It didn’t remind me of-

Me: That’s the one, ‘Muscle’. It didn’t remind me of that. Didn’t remind me too much of Spooks, which I think Keeley Hawes was in for a bit. What it reminded me of, more than anything else, was A Touch of Cloth.

Him: Ha! Yes!

Me: And all the way through those walking montages I was thinking… Anyway. I was going to say that I didn’t think that Psi had been directed very well, because Jonathan Bailey added some touches that were really good, but I have a suspicion that the problems I’m going to highlight actually come down to the script. Also, there were a couple of directorial decisions that were a little bit clunky. Tell me what you think about this...

(Pause.)

It felt to me… I think that script was written, mostly,8 before Peter Capaldi was cast. I don’t think they knew who was going to play the Doctor.

Him: Well, no, because Steven Moffat said he’d already decided Peter Capaldi was going to play the Doctor.

Me: Yeah, of course he's going to say that. I felt to me like a Matt Smith episode. There’re some poor dialogue choices in the Time Heist script. It’s all well and good having a character called the Architect but when the writer’s left some of the-

Him: Yeah, some of the bits did feel more ‘Peter Capaldi’. They could easily have been added afterwards.

Me: Oh, I think you’re right. The line, "I look like a magician," that’s come from some of the comments that were made when the first promo photo of Peter Capaldi was made public. Remember? The one where he’s standing and pointing? Fans photoshopped images of him pulling hats out of rabbits and-

Him: ‘Hats out of rabbits’?

Me: Yeah, I got that right. Ha! And the… The bit about the scarf and the bowtie and the whole “That was all silly…” That bit. The Doctor’s mentioned the scarf before. That’s an intentional thing. I like the story, don’t get me wrong. I think the story’s really good. It reminds me of a lost Time Twister story or an unused Future Shock pitch or something. I like the way it keeps pulling the rug out from under you.

Him: Why is it that the bank so secure and yet a solar flare’s enough to destroy it? Why’d they build it right next to a sun?

Me: I think it’s a very powerful solar flare. You can even see it flashing in rooms without any windows. I thought that was impressive.

Him: Especially in a place with no cameras. Why were there no cameras?

Me: It’s not that there weren’t any cameras…

Him: The cameras are all watching the people that don’t have brains!

Me: Just in case they drool too much. Some of it… Part of the reason it reminded me of Matt Smith was… Some of that episode was too slack. They were running on things they’ve done before and going back to doing things the way they used to do them. Some of the performances in Time Heist are far too big. Recently, there’s been a lot of under-playing, the acting’s been more subtle and reined-in. In Time Heist there’s slightly too much, “LOOK AT ME, MUM! I’M PERFORMING!” Which is… Do we have to do that?

Him: Especially Murray Gold.

(Longer pause than a sea badger trying to blind an event horizon.)

Me: I’m going to get on to-

Him: He returned.

Me: Yeah, he came back-

Him: With a vengeance.

Me: -with a brown vengeance. The music was all over the place. And some of it was appalling. Really bad. They’ve had four weeks of doing the music really, really well and then this week they go and mess it all up. We’re straight back to turning on the Lloyd-Webbenator.

Him: Who’s Lloyd Webber?

Me: Don’t worry. You’ll encounter him as you get older. In the next time trailer, they’re using the Matt Smith-

Him: ‘The Sun’s Gone Wibbly’.

Me: Yeah. Or, ‘I am the Doctor’. Apart from the disrespect it shows to Capaldi, it’s lazy. There’s no need for it and it’s hugely disappointing. Especially after how good it’s been. In fact, there was quite a bit of recycling in that one. We’ve already seen the Teller’s character arc in Hide for a start.

Him: Yes.

Me: And, apart from bringing back arch performances and Murray Gold’s music-by-numbers setting – by which I’m tremendously disappointed, he’s built up a lot of goodwill over the past few weeks and that went quite some way toward knocking it back down, - it was nice to see the Countdown Dalek’s borrowed the Doctor’s voice-alterfying device and gone freelance.

Him: Yeah.

Me: One of Keeley Hawes’ performances was indistinguishable from Sarah Lancashire’s as Ms. Foster in Partners in Crime: the Nanny of the Adipose. It’s played almost exactly the same, down to the glasses and the walk. Not only that, tonight we had another ‘Madame K’.9 First there’s Madame Kovarian – as played by Frances Barber – and now we’ve got Madame Karabraxos.

Him: They even look the same!

Me: I know!10 Now, obviously Steven Moffat’s contributed enough to the script to warrant a writing credit on the episode along with Stephen Thompson. That can’t just be because of the bit at the start, the ongoing Danny and Clara story. Lovely though that is, it’s just too brief.

(Pause.)

The opening shot, with the Doctor’s head spinning around while he stares into the untempered schism part of the rinse-cycle-

Him: It’s a toilet.

Me: Ha! It’s not a toilet! It’s not a vanishing goldfish’s POV either! But, yeah, that bit. “The Satanic Majesty of Jagger” or whatever he says at the start – that bit was great. But then the tone lurches with Murray Gold’s rush of blood. It’s like when you put your foot down and it turns unexpectedly causing you to miss the kerb and end up breaking your ankle. It was the dramatic equivalent of hobbling the audience with music. And that’s not a good way to start off an episode.

(Pause to wipe off the spittle.)

Later on, you said, “Why are we having all this triumphant music? What’s going on?” Everyone’s standing around and it’s just parping away - the BBC must pay that orchestra danger money – parping away in the background. Did you know the Doctor was going to be the Architect?

Him: I did actually figure that bit out.

Me: Uh-huh.

Him: About half-way through. At the start I was thinking, “Okay, he’s probably the same character because this is Steven Moffat,” and then more and more things pointed towards it. Like the fact he’s a time-traveller and the Doctor hates him. And stuff.

Me: That was somehow both overdone and underdeveloped. Which is a weird mix. They jumped to the conclusion without properly setting up the mystery. Some of it felt really disassociated. That’s partly due to the music, but not totally. The scene in the vault where the Doctor’s talking to Madame Karabraxos-

Him: How did it start?

Me: Eh? Oh, the spinning and then the answering of the phone-

Him: No. How did the bank heist start?

Me: What, how did they get in there?

(Pause.)

I dunno.11 They must’ve beamed down from space or something, we probably just missed that bit. Alright, we’ve talked about Steve Moore and Abslom Daak already. Oh! There is one more thing. I thought it was quite cool that the Teller turned out to be a panda. And when the Doctor drops them off in Edinburgh Zoo at the end, I thought that was lovely. And it ties in with what’s been going on in Scotland this week.

Him: If they ever do decide to bring them back, I really think they should keep the straitjacket. They're kind of rubbish otherwise.

Me: I don’t think so. I thought they looked good.

Him: Really?

Me: I did.

Him: They’re like half tree, half slug.

Me: With rhino feet. I liked them. The section where the Doctor tells his Leaning Tower of Pisa joke-

Him: “Ha ha ha ha.”

Me: Yeah! And then it should’ve frozen for the credits, like in Police Squad.14 With everyone standing there.

Me: The Police Squad theme tune is basically what's playing through most of Time Heist. Just with a less-fretty, slightly slappier funk bass. So, are we going to make barnyard noises or shall we just sing the Police Squad theme?

Him: No, you can make Teller noises.

Me:Rather than Penn? Hmmm… Tricky. I thought the effect of turning people’s brains to soup was gross. I didn’t know that the brain held up the skull.

Him: Ha!

Me: Actually, the fontanelle never heals over, so if your brain leaks out through your ears, or if you cry it out - we’ve all done maths questions that have that effect – then your whole forehead’ll fold in and you’ll have to wear a hat for the rest of your life.

Me: I keep my spare ears on the back of a mouse. And on that bombshell!

Him: Make Teller noises.

Me: “ffuffuffuffuffuff”

(Pause.)

Him: Do that again?

Me: “ffuffuffuffuffuff”

1. We’ll be coming back to slow motion. You might want to put the kettle on.2. Before you write in, don’t forget that A) This may be exaggerated for comedic purposes and B) We don’t do that joke any more.3. The Him’s veering slightly off-message here, you’ll note. I’m trying to build up an edgy persona and he keeps stealing its feet to make pottery.4.VAM, y’see.5. I’m not sure that the Him’s not got his Space Cowboy franchises fuddled up here. In fairness, he really, really, really, really doesn’t like Star Wars. As I’ve said before, all nappies should all have ‘ALWAYS START WITH A NEW HOPE’ printed on them. Oops.6. Kettle boiled yet?7.Rise and reverberate, Sisters. 8.“They mostly come at night. Mostly.”9. Blah blah blah they’re actually all the Master blah blah rhubarb blah.10. Just so we’re clear, this isn’t a criticism of the actors, it’s an observation about the writing.11. I’ll be surprised if 2000 AD in general (rather than just Future Shocks/Time Twisters in particular) isn’t being bandied round elsewhere online,12 so I’d better mention Memento, 12 Monkeys and Looper here, just to make sure someone has.12. Possibly even by people who haven’t got a clue what they’re typing about.1313. Other than me.14. IN COLOR!